Secondary Tales of the Two Great Epics

Author(s): Rajendra I Nanavati
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 33

Secondury Tales of the two Great Èpics But the term rigidly uniform in all the five references is 'bheda'. This uniformity of the term of reference which lays too much emphasis on the aspect of bheda' seems rather uneasy, and creates suspicion in our mind for the summary itself. When we actually examine the contents of the said summary, we find that out of the 37 ślokas of summary, only the last three or four refer to incidents of Duryodhana's jealousy, the game of dice (or the loss of kingdom), the vana-vāsa, the great war and the victory. All the remaining 33 refer to the incidents of 'bheda' -- the rift among the cousins ! - or, more precisely, to the incidents mostly from the AdiP !! Clearly, the usefulness of this summary as one more index to the entire epic is very doubtful. Prof. K. K. Shastri has attempted to treat this Adhyāya as a summary of the original "Jaya" kāvya of Vyāsa Pārāśarya -- the first phase of the epic - extending upto 8800 slokas, and to actually retrace the original epic of that length on the basis of this summary.52 Obviously, the attempt is too bold to be feasible and the hypothesis itself rests on too many assumptions which are themselves questionable. On the contrary, it would be more natural to look at it as a summary of the AdiP which also shows the importance of the episodes of Ādip by connecting them up with the rest of the chain of events and by indicating their place in the scheme of the entire epic. But why was such an indication needed ? Why a separate index ? No other Parvan or Kāņda is seen to begin with such a separate index or link-indication. The very fact that it was felt necessary to provide such an index for the AdiP seems to support our supposition that the events of the AdiP were added subsequently.
Looking at the summary more closely, we are able to see that it also does not refer to all the stories or incidents of the Adip. It mentions only the following: arrival of the five heroes in Hastināpura after Pandu's death, Duryodhana's jealousy for the brilliant orphans, his unsuccessful attempts to get rid of Bhima, Vidura's taking care of them, the incident of the lac-house and Pāņdavas' escape, Bhima slaying Hidimba and Baka, their obtaining Draupadi, returning to Hastināpura, Dhstarāstra sending them away to Khāņdava-prastha, the four younger brothers achieving victories in the four directions, 53 Yudhisthira sending Arjuna to forest under some pretext, the latter marrying Subhadrā, and then, with the help of Krsna barning the Khāņdavaforest for Agni. It will be seen that the summary leaves out many other incidents of the AdiP as follows: the birth of Vyāsa, the story of the divine descent, the Sakuntalāstory, the Yayāti-story, Bhişma's birth from Gangă, Satyavati' marriage to Santanu, her two sons, their marriages and deaths, their sons born of levirate, Pandu's marriages, the deer-sage's curse on him, his retiring to forest and his sad death, his five sons born of levirate, Draupadi's previous birth, story of Sunda-Upasunda, Arjuna's marriages with Ulūpi and Citrängadā, relvasing the five nymphs from their curse.
52 Vide : The Jay-Samhita i.e. The UR-Mahābhārata Vols. 1-11. Compiled by Prof. K.K. Shastri,
Gujarat Research Society, Ahmedabad-7, 1978 53 This is not in the chronological order of events. This victory comes, in the actual course of
tha epic, in the SabP, after the Jarāsanha-sadha-incident, vide SabP. Adhyāyas, 23-29.